Friday, February 9, 2018

Valentine's Day Fun & A Build-A-Bear Giveaway!

With Valentine's Day less than a week away, we had such a fun opportunity to visit Build-A-Bear last night and to check out their new collection of Valentine's Day gifts for 2018! Not only do they provide a great experience for you as you choose and build your furry friend, but you also get a unique Valentine's gift, to remind you of the fun memories you made together while creating it (and you all know how much I love an experience-based gift)!

Stay with me to the end of the post because I've got a giveaway for you, from Build-A-Bear, that you won't want to miss!

As soon as we arrived, we began the decision making process! Talia quickly chose to make the Color Craze Unicorn while Katrina took her time considering all of her options. She decided on the Rainbow Safari Bear. Ken chose Sugar Scent Pup (which actually smells sweet) from the Valentine's Day collection and I went with a sweet little bunny called Pawlette.

The girls loved shopping the store for outfits for their furry friends, and the fun doesn't stop at outfits; you can choose accessories and add sounds (inside of the puppy that Ken made is a message recorded just for me, in his own voice), scents, or a beating heart!

One of my favourite things about the process is that you get to be involved in stuffing your own furry friend, pressing the pedal on the stuffing machine and choosing how soft or firm you want your furry friends to be.

The heart ceremony is such a cute part of the process. The girls were invited to do things like rub the heart on their arms so their bear's arms would be able to give super duper hugs, to rub them on their heart so their bear would always know how much they love them, to hold them tight and make a special wish, then blow their wish into the heart and seal the wish with a kiss.

Then it was time to put the hearts inside, sew them up, and their furry friends were complete!

The heart ceremony for Ken and I was similar, but had a few little added touches since we are a couple. We rubbed the hearts on our sides, so we would always be at each other's sides and we put our hearts together and kissed them at the end. Talia took photos of the process. :)

After the heart ceremonies, it was time to head for the dressing rooms and get our bears dressed!

My suggestion is that if your kids are careful decision-makers, be sure to leave yourself plenty of time to look at the many outfits and accessories so they don't feel rushed and can enjoy the process.

We grabbed a couple of photo booth shots with props before leaving.

...and a family photo with our completed furry friends:

The last thing you'll do at Build-A-Bear is fill out a form on the computer to name your furry friend, for its birth certificate.

Here are the girls with their furry friends and their birth certificates:

Each furry friend is then packaged inside of a little carrying case (which you can take home to colour). When Talia went to Build-A-Bear to make a bear when she was younger, we took a photo outside the store, so we decided to keep with the tradition:

This was such a fun experience for our family, and not just for the kids! Build-A-Bear makes a great Valentine activity-with-gift experience for kids, teens, & adults alike! If you'd like to visit a Build-A-Bear near you, you can look up your nearest location with their Store Finder.

150 comments:

I would use it for my youngest son . He has his big brothers hand me down Bear form build a bear ( when it was just a kiosk and starting out) , but deserves his own. Love your post , such a great experience it looks like you had

For my youngest daughter who is 20 months old. Her older brother has a stash of stuffies that he is very possessive and his favorite of all time is his Build-a-Bear panda. My daughter gets jealous of him snuggling that one all the time so she could definitely use one.

I'd make a pokemon one if they still have those in the stores...its been a very long time since I was in the city in the mall where the store is located so I'm not sure what they have there now - but a pokemon is the #1 item I'd want to get lol

I'd love to give this to my in-laws who are taking care of my kids over the March break while I work. They struggle to find ways to entertain the kids and this might be a great activity for them to do.

I would use this gift card for my Granddaughter. Me and my wife took her to the build a bear store her first time and she loved it. We are taking her to see Disney on Ice on March 10th and my granddaughter asked me if we could go to the build a bear store after Disney on Ice because she needs a pink bear

My baby girl is 15 months now and I think she'd have a great time looking around the store and picking characteristics she'd like for her very own brand new childhood friend! Perfect mummy daughter bonding excursion, perhaps I'd let daddy join us too!